“The most important thing I learned is that the auto recycler owner needs to get out of the way,” said Cunningham. “We are not the experts so we need to let someone who understands the policies and some- one who can keep up with the changes in business and how it applies to insuring properly handle it. We learned that even though you think you are properly insured for business interruption you may not be so. Confirming that with an expert is crucial.” Nordstrom agrees. He learned that the insurance company has the right to hold back 20% of his claims money because he chose not to rebuild right away.

“I got eighty percent of my money, which I used part of it to do the temporary repairs, but now insurance will not pay out until the repairs have been made,” said Nordstrom. “Once they see I’m committed to rebuilding they’ll give me the rest. This has become the normal way of operating today. So it is very impor- tant to have annual insurance reviews to make sure you are properly insured for your current business (taking into consideration values of property going up and down, etc.) and that you understand the terms of their payment structure.”

Consider Your Data For AMA Recycling, Weaver learned from the close

call, “Even though the fire wasn’t caused by anything we did wrong and we could not have really prevented it, I think we dodged a bullet because the fire did not reach our office. If the fire department would have been there ten minutes later we would have been in real trouble because I don’t feel we had our files ade- quately backed up. After the fire, we worked with our IT consultant to make sure we have our files backed up and stored off-site. I also increased the number of security cameras we had and changed some of the angles to help capture better images.” Ultimately, through a disaster, you can grow and become stronger. Nordstrom says even when faced with something so tough, he is proud of his employees and the CAR standards that “gave our facility in rural South Dakota the roadmap for being prepared for the worst.” He echoes the thoughts of others who saw their own employees implement the training and cer- tifications they had in their facilities. While a disaster may or may not come, we can always be better pre- pared by learning from the experiences of others. Michelle Keadle-Taylor is afreelance writer based in Pennsylvania.

July-August 2015 | Automotive Recycling 53